Friday, November 19, 2010

Gristle Speaks

Great news: The Guangzhou Story is now the number one Google search
result for “gristle guangzhou”. Second place goes to a website called
Invest Guangzhou, which has this to say on the Gristle Question:

Caizhilin, founded more than 200 years ago during the reign of Emperor Jia Qing (1796-1820) of the Qing Dynasty, produces 12 soup blend series in three categories - glossy ganoderma, fish maw, and shark gristle in light of Guangdong people’s fondness of “long stewed tasty soup”.

I can’t speak for all of Guagndong, but I know Gristle at least has a
serious fondness
for “long stewed tasty soup”. I mean that in the gayest way possible, if it wasn’t already clear.

A story, from the archives. This happened a while ago, but I didn’t get
a chance to write up this story about Gristle because I’ve been busy
writing up other stories about Gristle. It’s a surreal Sisyphean
experience I live here.

This one’s short, though: Gristle and I were out to dinner with some
friends, and since everyone there spoke English, he decided he wanted to
try and speak some of his own. Of course this took a while since his
English is what could jocularly be called “rusty.” So, as he pulled his
English sentences bit by bit from some great linguistic lockbox inside
himself, we continued to eat and talk (quietly, don’t want to be rude!)
between his words and phrases.

Under these conditions, what would normally be a Gristle line to laugh
about and then forget became a slow-motion master class at the Gristle
School of comedy.
Observe:

“My…friend?”

(“Can you pass the lamb?”)

“went to Hong Kong”

(“Oh, really?”, “Hmm”, “I see”)

“he took an…”

(“Waitress, can you bring some napkins?”)

“exam?”

(“Yes, that’s the right word.”)

“for training.”

(“Training! Great.” Everyone makes appreciative noises to communicate
that they have heard and processed his story. And then, just as
we’re about to move on to what someone else has to say…)

“Dolphins.”

Gristle’s friend went to Hong Kong to take an exam because he wants to
become a dolphin trainer, an anecdote that, as it turns out, becomes
much, much funnier if you just take your time.